Defeat and Resurrection: A Political History of the Pan-Albanian National Revolutionary Movement, 1912-2010

ABSTRACT "Defeat and Resurrection: A Political History of the Pan-Albanian National Revolutionary Movement, 1912-2010" Alexandra De Renzy Channer Supervisor, Professor Brendan O'Leary This is a study of the strategies of the micro and macro movements making up the Albanian pan-national revolutionary movement, which sought to unite their imagined homeland, divided by political borders, in one state. It looks at the development of nationalism in the space of partition and across time. The Albanian case is analyzed in depth, from the declaration of independent Albania in 1912 and its partition in 1913, up to 2010. Relying on archival research and in-depth interviews of former activists and political prisoners, the dissertation compares the conceptual, methodological and organizational strategies of Pan-Albanian movements and asks why they persisted, despite severe costs and almost constant defeat. It examines, in particular, the long-shadow of repression in politicizing partitioned Albanians and transforming their classic self-determination grievance, into the more enduring and irreversible remedial self-determination grievance. As well as the confrontation of more visible strategies of civil and armed resistance, and military, political and legal strategies of repression or reform, the study emphasizes the down-stream politicizing effects of the ideological struggle waged over the right-sizing of Pan-Albanian grievance. This comparison is set in a dynamic context of historic interaction, created by partition, between the regimes of independent Albania and partitioned Albanians' host states, Great Power patrons and national revolutionary groups. The strategies of this quartet respond to the particular dilemma which partition created for Albanians: how to make complementary and not competitive the nation-building and state-building project.